Treatment File

Treatment File

Concept:

The title sequence we have chosen is for the psychological thriller“Black Swan”. We plan to foreshadow the movie through a mixture of both still imagery and digital media, in the hope of creating a dark, unsettling atmosphere. Our inspiration came from the film maker/graphic designer Saul Bass, in particular his title sequence for “Cape Fear”, along with our studies of "Swan Lake", ballet, "LaBoca" and origami. By using these as references we hope to create a tempo which will mimic the above movie, through a simplistic and modern style.

Technique and Approach:

This will be produced using both motion and still imagery, incorporating many different materials such as feathers, paper, water, milk, fire, smoke, nail varnish, mirrors, wire, wood and ink, which we will create and shoot together.

Aesthetics/Mood Board:

The Following are examples of images which we found particularly influential in our research on this topic and are the basis of our mood board.

The colour scheme stands out along with the echoed movement of the arms, making the swans wings.
The inspiration for the poster comes from Polish and Czech posters from the 60s.

The transparent feathers showing a ballet dancer is a clever technique.
All so the feathers themselves seem to be dancing.
The colour scheme was also worth noting as it conveys a similar feeling to the movie.

The simplicity of both the image, type and colours used is powerful.

Mirrored inverted image using the opposing colours of black and white.

This Image not only ties in with our colour scheme but has a blood like quality, from which the jumping figures add a dramatic effect.

The origami and the contrast between black and white in the above image has a delicate and very relevant theme to "Black Swan", simply executed with the style which we plan to use in our production.



The wing effect and how its attached to the figure.

We like how the ballerinas reflection is mirrored in floor, playing with the recurrent theme of self-analyisation within "Black Swan", which we also hope to convey in the title sequence.

We found it worth keeping as a technique to have something going on in a silhouette.
The colour scheme once again being black white and red. This piece all so deals with reflections.

The above picture caught our eye as it plays with the distorion of shadows which could be very effective. As you can see, below we experimented with such an idea which produced a very striking image.

Audio:

Due to the classical nature of this film, we plan to use classical music within our sequence. The chimes of a music box are also very relevant to our clip and add an eerie atmosphere to the sequence which prevails throughout “Black Swan”.
The following are a few audios which we are using as reference;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3h-lLj3xv4 (The begining of this clip has the music box
effect mentioned above)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCtgTpxgwjc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbISZmS_ro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBFXJw7n-fU

Sequence of Events/Shot List:

• The opening shot of our title sequence begins with a blackout.
• From this blackout a strong spotlight appears on a still ballerina, centre stage. This ballerina will be a stylised, wooden mannequin which will then proceed to dance across the scene, revealing a title in the light as it does so.
• The spotlight will then alter to create a sharp shadow of the dancer on the black background, which will continue to dance across the shot. However, as the shadow silhouette moves across screne, a background of falling white feathers can been seen through it as if it were transparent.The camera then starts to zoom into the figure of the silhouette as the density of the feathers gradually increase, until it is a close up of just the feathers.
• Using a black nail varnish technique, these feathers will have fallen onto the layer of varnished water, at which point we will tear the surface layer to create the effect of ripping skin.
• After the surface layer is removed from the frame we will introduce a white orgami swan who floats to a mirror wall which is placed in the water. This will give the swan a refection which we then hope to manipulate, by burning it.
• Next the camera will focus on the smoke rising from the burning orgami swan in the reflection, which forms the ballerinas shape as it rises. At that point the spot light from the begining will come back on and male hands will enter it in an attempt to grasp the ballerina, but she will disperse as the hands try to grab her.
• At this, the entire screen will smash, as this was all hapening in the mirror, leaving only the title of the film in the frame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCtgTpxgwjc